Lady Gaga Nixed in Indonesia



(Jakarta, Indonesia)

Pop star Lady Gaga’s upcoming Jakarta concert was canceled by the National Police on Tuesday amid harsh protest from Indonesia’s hard-line Islamist organizations.

“The National Police said verbally that [the concert] would not be permitted,” Jakarta police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said.[…]

Ticket sales were strong, with concert selling some 52,000 tickets in two weeks. Promoter Big Daddy released another 2,000 tickets on Monday.

But hard-line groups like the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) have rallied against the concert — Lady Gaga’s first in Indonesia — calling the pop diva a “dangerous” influence on Indonesia’s youth. The organization’s Jakarta chairman Salim Alatas told Agence France-Presse that FPI members would mobilize 30,000 supporters to forcibly prevent Lady Gaga from stepping off her plane. [ed. emphasis]

“We will stop her from setting foot on our land. She had better not dare spread her satanic faith in this country,” FPI Jakarta chairman Salim Alatas told AFP. “Her style is vulgar, her sexual and indecent clothes will destroy our children’s sense of morality. She’s very dangerous.”

More